


Shotgun

by Jamesandthedog



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Marauders' Era, a hint of wolfstar, james and driving, jily, muggle tricks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 01:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16672492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jamesandthedog/pseuds/Jamesandthedog
Summary: When it came to flying no one doubted James Potter.And his flying style told all about what kind of a driver he would be.





	Shotgun

**Author's Note:**

> I have this headcannon about James and driving, finally got to write it down. Comments are appreciated as always!

When it came to flying no one doubted James Potter. He knew how to find his way around the pitch and above it, and during the five years he played in the Gryffindor team the whole school came to learn exactly how capable and fearless he was on a broom. The latter came quite clear to his parents too, they bought him eight brooms in seven years and two of those purchases were due to James trying to prove he could fly faster than the Whomping Willow hits. To be fair, even the Slytherin captain was heard to say James had gotten better at dodging the branches since the first time someone dared him to try. Maybe it was the same devotion that led to Puddlemere United offering James a deal in their reserve team in the end of his sixth year – if it hadn’t been for the war, he would have said yes.

In the summer between sixth and seventh grade Sirius bought himself a motorbike and worked most of the summer to make that rusty old piece of metal run again. After all that muggle work James saw his best friend do to get the bike running, he still did not quite understand how the muggles made those boxes of metal move so fast without magic. But even then, or maybe exactly because of it he thought them to be marvelous little inventions. The only thing he wondered was why the muggles did not make them fly like they had done with the bigger muggle vehicles. And one day that very summer in the shed of the Potter’s garden, it was James to suggest they’d make the bike fly.

When Sirius finally succeeded in their slightly illegal plan of making the thing run and fly, he made clear as the night sky that James was not allowed to steer it. Apparently his flying style told too much about what kind of a driver he would be. 

“If that’s the reference you’re taking you might as well sign me up for a matorbike World Cup then,” James had said.

The response had not been quite what he had hoped for. “Mate, the minimum requirement for that is knowing how to pronounce the name of a vehicle.” 

“Sod off.”

“You’re the one standing in my garage.” 

When the messy haired boy refused to let it go Sirius simply informed he did not let anyone else drive the bike, not even Moony, though James doubted he said so only to give James less of a reason to protest.

But James protested. For someone as utterly in love with flying and speed, it was simply not enough of an adrenaline rush to sit behind his best friend without ever getting to try the bike out himself. When he found he got nowhere with complaining he announced on buying a car himself. It was only after his mother forbid him of buying such a dangerous thing (“One son with a death wish is perfectly enough”) and Sirius had pledged to take him to see a muggle bike race in London that James dropped the topic. The race itself proved to be a spectacle, though nothing compared to Quidditch.

Roughly a year later when Lily bought a green Volkswagen, no one was surprised by James’ excitement. It was all he talked about at one of the traditional Potter family Sunday brunches at his parents’ house. It wasn’t that they needed a car; they could apparate anywhere they wanted to and if was much faster too. But Lily’s parents were muggles and it made only sense they were visited by a car and not by appearing from thin air on the front door of a muggle neighbourhood. Lily didn’t say it out aloud, but James thought it was partly because of her sister too.

That’s where she was this morning, visiting her sister who had specifically instructed her to come without that magician of hers. James though the term hilarious, not that the incident itself was any fun.

“Well that’s lovely, I imagine she must know a quite a bit about driving then,” James’ mother said as they had gathered around the table.

Euphemia Potter had grown very fond of the red headed girl James had brought home the very same summer, right after their graduation. They had written so many letters to each other James was actually surprised his mother had not heard about the car before.

“Quite a bit more than Prongs.” Sirius dodged the piece of bread James threw at him from the other side of the table.

“Stop it boys, this is hardly worth of wasting home-baked bread,” she said, and Sirius gave her the most sincere smile with a hint of apology in it. “She’s not going to let you drive it, is she James?”

This was and always had been one of the things puzzling James. He was, was he not, the best Quidditch player Hogwarts had seen for years and that should have counted for something. If he was able to fly like that, he sure could manage such a common muggle trick as a car. 

“Why everyone has a problem with me steering a muggle vehicle? I have a bloody broom for Merlin’s sake!”

“A bloody broom and seven in shreds, I say”, said his father winking an eye. He scratched his arm before continuing. “With this bloody war going on, we sure as Merlin don’t need you blasting yourself off the books because someone dared you to drive eyes closed though London’s traffic.”

“I wouldn’t drive eyes closed in the traffic.”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t have guts to do it with a muggle vehicle.”

“I would totally have the guts to– Oh, damned Padfoot!”

The dining room filled with laughter, one of those rare occasions now that the war was weighing on all of them. And as James listened the giggles her mother made, the whole-hearted dog-like bark his best friend and a brother made, and the laughter that reminded so much his own, he could not help but smile himself. He would have laughed too, but that was the exact moment Lily, coming back from her morning visit at the newlyweds' Dursley residence, rang the doorbell.

Later that afternoon when they had eaten and Lily had more or less gotten over the dejection of that rather dispirited visit to her sister's, they were playing the Exploding Snap in the living room of his childhood home James brought up the driving matter again in hopes Lily would surely trust him with a car.

“James, even a dog would drive better than you.” 

She settled it with a smile, not knowing she’d regret the choice of words the following Halloween when the neighborhood children praised their Halloween decorations and the black dog driving their car. Well, James got to push the pedals so there was that.


End file.
